How I help
I work with founders of small agencies, usually between one and fifteen people, as a sounding board and an experienced outside perspective. Most of it comes down to helping you make better decisions sooner: knowing which problems matter now, which can wait, and which to ignore. These are some of the most common challenges founders bring me, not the whole list. Most engagements start with one of them and end up pulling on several, because they overlap more than they look. If yours isn't here, it almost certainly still fits: the work is the same whatever the presenting problem.
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Breaking founder dependency
Your agency runs well, but only while you are in the middle of everything. Getting you out of that middle without the wheels coming off.
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Winning more work
New business that runs hot and cold, and a pipeline you cannot quite explain. Making it steadier, and less reliant on you.
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Visibility and confidence with your numbers
The big calls, a hire, a price, a difficult client, get made half in the dark. Finding the few numbers that matter for your agency and reading them together.
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Making AI work in your agency
Everyone in the agency uses AI, in their own way, and none of it is written down. Working out what it actually means for your agency, and acting on it, one thing at a time.
Other things founders bring me
I haven't detailed all of the common challenges yet. Some of the other conversations that come up often:
- Pricing: charging properly for the work, raising prices with existing clients, and stopping the quiet discounts.
- Busy but chaotic: over-servicing, reporting that eats the month, and processes that only exist in someone's head.
- Team: the first senior hire, a co-founder or partner whose role has drifted, and bringing juniors on without it costing you the time it saves.
- What you get back: hours, pay, pension and energy, and whether the agency is paying you for what it costs you.
- Direction: what kind of agency this should be in two or three years, and what to say no to in the meantime.
- Stepping back: succession, what the business would be worth, and what has to be true before you can leave it alone for a month.
However we start, the shape of the work is the same: two calls a month, light contact in between, and a fixed monthly retainer. If something here sounds familiar, get in touch.